Math, Bitcoin
and big numbers
Why math gives protection?
SHA-256: Bitcoin's armor
How many possible private keys exist?
2256 = (4 billion)8
4 billion hashes/sec — one GPU at peak
4 billion such machines = 1 kilo-Google (1,000× the entire Google)
Each of Earth's 4 billion people has their own kilo-Google
4 billion such Earths = 1% of the galaxy's stars
4 billion such galaxies = a giga-galactic supercomputer
37× the age of the universe
…and even then, your odds of hitting the right key are 1 in 4 billion.
Full brute force: ~260 billion × the age of the universe
The network's power
The Bitcoin mining network in numbers
1 057
EH/s hashrate
Exahash per second — the world's most powerful computing network
~17
Paks II-sized reactors (1.2 GW each)
~20 GW continuous load (≈200 TWh/yr) — joined voluntarily, no recruitment. (Paks II: planned Hungarian nuclear plant)
~2K×
all phones, laptops, PCs and servers combined
Every smartphone, computer and data-center server in the world combined — expressed in Bitcoin SHA-256 capacity
4–5×
the world's total supercomputing capacity
Frontier, Aurora and the rest of the TOP500 combined are a fraction of this
No one recruited these machines. They joined organically, because it's worth it to them.
If you want to compete…
What would you have to build to catch up with the Bitcoin network?
⚛️
17 Paks II reactors
Each a 1.2 GW unit to cover the ~20 GW continuous load. Price per reactor: $10+ billion.
10–12 years each
🏗️
~510 football fields of data center
About 30 football fields of hyperscale data center per reactor — ~510 total for 17 reactors. Plus more billions.
+2–3 years
📈
Meanwhile the network
By the time you're done, Bitcoin's hashrate has grown 30%. Per year.
+30%/yr
17 nuclear plants + 510 football fields of data center — just to enter the race. By the time it's built, the Bitcoin network is already 4× bigger.
Bitcoin mainnet ≈ Visa + Mastercard
Settlement volume — Q4 2025
Annual settlement volume
Glassnode Q4 2025: Bitcoin mainnet 90-day settlement volume reached the combined Visa + Mastercard volume — with final, irreversible settlement. Not a promise — a transfer of ownership.
And faster too.
Mainnet is slow and expensive — for a coffee, there's Lightning.
Transactions per second — capacity
Lightning Network is ~40× faster than Visa's peak capacity, and theoretically unlimited: scales by adding more nodes. No clearinghouse, no 3-day wait.
3 days or 1 second?
When settlement is actually final.
~3 days
Mastercard / Visa
The merchant gets the money through clearinghouses, days later.
1 second
Lightning Network
Instant, final, irreversible — actual transfer of ownership.
I pay a Chinese bookseller from Hungary — the money is in his hands within 1 second. He walks out of his shop, around the corner, and pays the ice-cream vendor with that same Bitcoin. The vendor has it too — finally, definitively.
The math of scarcity
Of anything you see, they make as much as there's demand for — except Bitcoin.
21.000.000
never more — not in quantity, not in issuance rate
🏭
For every object: supply matches demand
A bútortól az aranyig: ha nő a kereslet, nő a kínálat is. Semmi nem igazán szűkös — csak idelőlegesen az.
₿
Bitcoin: the exception
Neither the total supply (21M) nor the issuance schedule can be changed. One block = 10 minutes, since 2009. No demand can speed it up.
⏳
The only analogy: time
Everyone gets the same number of seconds per day. You can't rush it, you can't slow it. You can buy more watches — but not more time.
⛏️
Mined in time, not in the ground
Gold is dug from the ground. Bitcoin is ripened by moving forward in time. Every new block is mathematical proof that time has passed.
The first digital scarcity in history — and that's exactly why it became money.